Emily Wickham

The initial landscape piece manipulates the football field (the most disciplined of landscapes) into something we might not expect.

If we fundamentally changed the rules of the football pitch would a wider section of society feel able to use it? Public realm should question the status quo. This work questions assumptions we make about how things should be and uses theatricality to explore ideas of how the world could be better than it is.

The football programme for counter culture. Starting from the case study of Hackney marshes football pitches, it proposes ideas that are both based in design and logistics that will give women the opportunity to occupy public space in a system that currently lacks provision. 

The manual covers alternative rules to the game, Pitch layouts, lighting schemes, media presence, Spectators visibility, design of the laundry room, changing stations and views on to the park. Ideas range from the pragmatic to the surreal. It highlights the need for design to run in tandem with policy, noting that an altered timetable or a booking system that operates outside the cash economy and instead focuses on specific parties i.e. womxn are an essential layer for the designed spaces to have any meaningful impact.

The programme outlines how the new pavilion on site will bypass planning laws by officially being a leisure extension to Saba Pizza Bar and grill that borders the marshes. This means that the pavilion itself is non conforming, hidden from the road but proudly visible from the park. 

The mode of representation for the proposals is google street view. Arguably, itself another form of public space with inherent biases. By allowing the ideas to play out in the virtual space we can examine the successes or failures of the proposals.

In several respects google street view itself echoes the issues contained in the football field. Both set themselves up as neutral public spaces that can be accessed by anyone. But both have significant biases. As such the proposal will not just manipulate the football field but google maps itself in order tot probe these biases. A valuable example of this is google street view ‘pegman’ a graphic representation of a man in black tie, and the only tool with which to operate street view. 

The project recognises that the proposal is not a feminist utopia. Even while women are gaining autonomy and visibility through having this space in which to play, the patriarchal gaze remains. the more visibility women have the greater they are scrutinised. Representation and objectification are inextricably linked.

The final piece of work ties together ideas of what it means to be represented in public by focusing back in on specific moments within the game of football. 

The work continues to question the viewers assumptions, challenging the fundamental idea that in patriarchal society women have no choice but to live as object as well as subject. The reaction of the media to women in sport and more broadly women in public exemplifies this societal stance. 

The final film is based around the manipulation of the line marker: The machine that facilitates the most disciplined of landscapes. In this scenario, it becomes the vehicle for the street view presentation whilst also marking the lines for the alternative pitch. The person pushing the line marker is both the viewer (watching the presentation and marking the lines of the pitch) and the viewed. (starring in the film itself).